A BOSTON GLOBE BESTSELLER
In a160;fresh, modern take on the remarkable Louisa May Alcott, Harriet Reisen8217;s vivid biography explores the author8217;s life in the context of her works, many of which are to some extent autobiographical. Although Alcott secretly wrote pulp fiction, harbored radical abolitionist views, and160;served as a Civil War nurse, her novels went on to sell more copies than those of Herman Melville and Henry James. Stories and details culled from Alcott8217;s journals, together with revealing letters to family, friends, and publishers, plus recollections of her famous contemporaries provide the basis for this lively account of the author8217;s classic rags-to-riches tale. In Louisa May Alcott, the extraordinary woman behind the beloved American classic Little Women is revealed as never before.
Louisa May Alcott is best known for her beloved novel LITTLE WOMEN, but her real life, as presented in Harriet Reisen's bold biography, was every bit as fascinating as any fiction. Her father was an eccentric transcendentalist whose utopian dreams often bankrupt the Alcott family. Louisa grew up with radical progressive values, and her abolitionist family hid runaway slaves in the home. In addition to her famous LITTLE WOMEN books, she also wrote, under the pseudonym A.M. Barnard, a series of passionate novels filled with lust, revenge, and violence. Unlike her literary heroines, Alcott never married and died from mercury poisoning, but her life was a fierce and willfully triumphant as the heroines of her novels. The inspiration for a PBS dramatization of Alcott's life, LOUISA MAY ALCOTT : THE WOMAN BEHIND LITTLE WOMEN is a vivid and dramatic biography of a great writer whose convictions were far ahead of her time.
- Genre: Biography + Autobiography
- Subgenre: Women, Literary
- Publisher: Picador USA
- Pages: 444
- Edition: Reprint
- Language: English
- Format: paperback
- Release Date: October 26, 2010
- Date Published: October 26, 2010
- Author: Harriet Reisen